Virtually all diet plans work if a person will stick with the plan long enough. Most of us seem to have trouble with that. I'm going to focus on just doing good for one day--and then another, and another, and another.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

While a weigh-in of 231 pounds leaves a lot of work still ahead of me, it is much better than the 238.5 pounds I saw on my December 17th birthday. It's a shame that losing 7.5 pounds in two weeks isn't something a person can do all the time on a diet, especially on a diet that included some ups and downs due to various activities associated with the Christmas season.

The math is fairly simple since my goal is to reach 175 pounds by my next birthday. Losing 5 pounds per month would put me at 176 pounds to start December, giving me 17 days to lose the final pound. The only real difficulty with that plan is the frustration that comes when weight loss is so seemingly slow. Looking at the big picture, the amount lost in a year, a person losing 60 pounds in 12 months would be a remarkable thing. Looking at the small picture, cutting back on eating and only seeing small drops or no drops from week to week, losing 5 pounds per month can feel like a pointless endeavor.

I would naturally prefer to lose 10 pounds per month, hit my target weight by the start of the summer, and then spend the rest of the year maintaining that weight while improving my general fitness. That's what I'll shoot for, but if that plan doesn't work out, it's going to very important that I remember the power of small weight losses from month to month and how they add up to a huge success. One way or another, this weight is going to come off.